Peruvian occupation of Ecuador

The Peruvian occupation of Ecuador was the military occupation by the Peruvian Army of the southern provinces of Ecuador that lasted from 1941 to 1942, during the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War. After a ceasefire was declared on July 31, 1941, the civil administration became limited to the provinces of El Oro and Loja until the Rio Protocol was signed on January 29, 1942, with Peruvian troops withdrawing on February 12.

Background

In 1941, skirmishes between Ecuador and Peru along their unresolved border, and nationalistic public sentiment against each country by the other country's citizens, slowly escalated the territorial dispute that had existed for a century at that point.

Conflict broke out on July 5, when shots were fired between both parties alongside the Zarumilla River, leading to the Peruvian Northern Army Detachment's land and air campaign in southern Ecuador and thus beginning the main stage of the Ecuadorian–Peruvian War.

Faced with the threat to the Ecuadorian state, with Ecuadorian President Carlos Alberto Arroyo del Río keeping a sizable part of the Army in Quito, Ecuador promptly requested a ceasefire, which went into effect on 31 July 1941.

Occupation

After the ceasefire, a civilian administration was established in the occupied Province of El Oro by Peru. A month later, on October 2, the Talara Accord (Spanish: Acuerdo de Talara) was signed, through which a bilateral ceasefire was put into place. The treaty also established a demilitarized zone between both states, which would be under the Ecuadoran administration, and the observation of military representatives of the mediator countries that also signed the agreement: the United States, Brazil and Argentina. Other countries involved in the mediation included the Vatican, which had acted both directly between both countries and in conjunction with the other mediators, and to a lesser extent, Chile and Mexico. The topic of Pan-Americanism was brought up, with countries such as Ecuador proclaiming their allegiance to the movement, and other countries, such as France, criticizing it and arguing that it only served to increase American influence in the continent.